TNF and epilepsy: TNF-alpha (TNFα) is a proinflammatory cytokine that has been shown to regulate synaptic activity in the hippocampus through control of astrocyte glutamate release, and is also upregulated in epilepsy (de Bock et al., 1996; Avignone et al., 2008; Santello et al., 2011; Habbas et al., 2015; Patel et al., 2017).